M: Okay, so we have to come up with something for this White House deal...

A: You mean, besides the slam poetry.

M: Yeah.

A: Because you and me and the slam poetry -- that's not happening.

M: Power of Words... Power of Words.

A: Let's not over-think this. It's not that hard. All we ever do all day is use words. We write, we talk.

M: Some of us talk more than others.

A: Cute. It's just, you know, this is for the President of the United States, and the whole First Family. No pressure.

M: Wait a minute. "We use words." "Use your words." You know how we're always saying that to our kids? Don't have a tantrum, use your words. Put down that rock and use your words.

A: Actually, what we say now is, "Don't you want to be like Malia and Sasha?" "Malia and Sasha use their words." "Malia and Sasha make their beds every day."

M: Why can't our children be more like Malia and Sasha?

A: Focus, dude.

M: Right. So, the idea is to teach our kids that language--persuasive language, language that appeals to the heart, the intellect, the senses, is the greatest instrument and power we possess to resolve our differences. That to resort to other means--tantrums, rocks, guns, armies--is as destructive and ultimately as powerless for us as for the people we ought to be talking to.

A: You're saying we go to the White House with "The pen is mightier than the sword." That's your A material?

M: I know. I know. But the thing is... I mean, why is this so hard to learn? For them, and for us. Why is this something that we have to keep teaching them, and ourselves, again and again and again?

A: Because to use language, to really use it to its fullest and greatest potential, takes so many things. It takes training in vocabulary, syntax, grammar. It takes exposure to great works of literature, to style and rhetoric. But above all, more than anything else, to harness the power of language to its fullest, you need to be able to put yourself in the place of the person you're talking to.

M: You have to be able to imagine.

A: Right. To imagine what they're thinking, how they must be feeling right now, how they might react to the various things you might say or the ways you might say them. And that's hard.

M: It's the hardest thing in the world. To stand outside yourself. To see things, to see the world, the way other people see them.

A: "The easier it is for you to imagine walking in someone else's shoes, the more difficult it then becomes to do that person harm."

M: Wow, that's so profound, who wrote that?

A: You did.

A beat.

M: So basically, you're telling me, we got nothing.

A: Nope. We could always try that slam. Or maybe a little "cypha?"

M: Still not happening.